Caucasus storms Antalya
By Malcolm Pein
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
May 17, 2004, Monday
THE European Individual Championships have started in Antalya,
Turkey. The tournament has a prize fund of more than 40,000 euros
and 12 guaranteed places in what is described as the 2005-2006 Fide
world championship knockout, but who knows what kind of system will
be in place by then?
The tournament is organised by the Turkish Chess Federation, which
ran last year’s edition at Silviri and cannot be faulted for its
efforts. The problem with the event is that it is not an economic
proposition for most professional players, which is why there are
virtually no western European GMs.
Under the Fide regulations, the players are obliged to stay at the
venue, which, although reasonably priced, makes the prospect of a
profitable stay remote for most. Seventy-two players are competing,
half of them over 2,500 Elo, and the top 15 are ranked in the world’s
top 100 players.
The top seed is Vassili Ivanchuk of Ukraine but he lost horribly
in the first round with White. The winner may well come from the
Caucasus; five members of the Armenian national team are playing,
and there are two of the most gifted young players from Azerbaijan:
the prodigy Teimour Radjabov, who defeated Garry Kasparov at Linares
last year, and the world junior champion Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.
17.g4 is exposed as premature in a very stylish game by the Bulgarian
IM Julian Radulski. Not only does Black get to the open h file first
but with the clever 18b4! he pushed Ivanchuk’s knight out of play
because 19 Ne2 loses the g4 pawn. Then there is a mass invasion down
the h file.
V Ivanchuk – J Radulski
European Ind. Ch. (1.1)
Ruy Lopez
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Be7 6 Re1 b5 7 Bb3 d6 8 c3
Na5 9 Bc2 c5 10 d4 Qc7 11 d5 Bd7 12 b3 0-0 13 h3 Nb7 14 c4 Rfe8 15
Nc3 g6 16 Bd2 Bf8 17 g4 h5! 18 Nh2 b4! 19 Na4 hxg4 20 hxg4 Be7! 21
Nb2 Kg7! 22 Kg2 Rh8 23 Rh1 Rh4 24 f3 Rah8 25 Qe2 Qc8 26 Rag1 Qg8 27
Be1 Rh3 28 Nd1 Qh7 29 Bg3 Nxg4! 0-1
Radulski p p p 7 p a p – k c e Y c p o p c p p o b o p o b p b p a
p p b p p b 8 b p A p Z p X l p p ‘ p 6 *
Ivanchuk
Final position after 29Nxg4! and if 30 hxg4 Rxg3+! 31 Kxg3 Qh3+
32 Kf2 Bh4+ wins
Nigel Short is in the line-up for the annual Super Tournament at
Sarajevo which began on Sunday. The full line-up is Alexei Shirov,
Nigel Short, Ivan Sokolov, Viktor Bologan, Sergei Movsesian, Zdenko
Kozul, Suat Atalik, Bojan Kurajica, Emir Dizdarevic and Borki
Predojevic.